Open Source Web Design

Open source web design, like all of open source, is the idea of allowing all of your content to be accessible for all to see. The most common open source licenses online can be found at Creative Commons. Our CSS templates for example are licensed upon the Attribution license, which means anyone can use, modify, and build upon the templates in any way that they wish, so long as they attribute us as the original creators of the templates. There are many other variations on this licenses, which I'll go through below.

Attibution

Users are free to do ANYTHING they wish with your content, including make money off of it, so long as they attribute you as the original author.

Attribution - Share Alike

This is the most common license in open source web design, as not only does it include all of the above, it also requires that anyone who uses the work include the same license when they use it. Which basically means that the software will always be open source, even if some third party changes 90% of it around, it still must be licensed under the original license.

Attribution - No Derivatives

With this open source web license,third parties can do what they wish with your work, but it may not be distributed in any way different than how your packaged it.

Attribution - Non Commercial

Just like the Attribution license above, except no money can be made through the use of your work.

Attribution - Non Commercial Share Alike

Just like the Share Alike license above, except no money can be made through the use of your work.

Attribution - Non-Commercial No Derivatives

Just like the No derivatives license above, except no money can be made through the use of your work.

One of the main benefits of open source web design, is that your work can be spread much faster than if it were restricted by a license. The obvious draw back to open source web design is the fact that it can be harder to monetize your work since it is freely available, and anyone can come along to improve upon your work for themselves.